OBITUARIES : G. Bourne; Nutritionist, Author, Primate Expert

Geoffrey Bourne, an internationally known nutritionist and expert on primates who wrote an important historical overview of hunger in wartime Europe, has died. He was 79.

Bourne, vice chancellor of St. George’s University School of Medicine on the Caribbean island of Grenada during the American invasion, died Tuesday at Bellevue Hospital’s coronary care unit, where he was admitted two weeks ago, a spokesman for the university said.

The Australian native was the author of several books, including “Nutrition and the War” in 1941 and “Starvation in Europe” in 1943. The latter book was placed in the British Imperial War Museum as a historical document.

Bourne also founded and edited the World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics and the International Review of Cytology.

He earned bachelor’s, master’s and doctor’s degrees from the University of Western Australia, and another doctoral degree from Oxford University.

Wartime Biomedical Service

From 1938 to 1947, Bourne taught physiology at Oxford. During World War II, he also served as a member of the British Special Operations unit in charge of biomedical research for Special Forces in Southeast Asia.

In 1945 and 1946, he was chairman of the Pan Malayan Nutrition Council, which assessed Malaya’s food needs after the Japanese surrender.

Between 1948 and 1957, Bourne was professor of histology at the University of London. He later became professor and chairman of anatomy at Emory University Medical School in Atlanta.

In 1962, he became director of the Yerkes Primate Research Center at Emory, a post he held until joining the St. George’s University School of Medicine in 1977 as vice chancellor. He was also a professor of nutrition at St. George’s, and was placed in charge of scores of American medical students supposedly trapped in Grenada before the U.S. invasion in October, 1983.

With other officials at the school, Bourne deemed the invasion unnecessary.